Thanks for seeking my advice on the story about Obama appointing two devout Muslims to posts with Homeland Security.  I have hesitated to respond for fear of setting off another round of political discord.  But on reflection, what are friends for if not to share our views on controversial political matters?

I don’t pay much attention to stories circulating the Internet like this one or the one you circulated recently  about the welfare mom ripping off  the taxpayers to the tune of over $100K annually.  Are these and other such stories really true?  Possibly, but the sources are questionable, to say the least.  I have checked the most reliable source I know — more about that below – and I can find nothing that confirms the Internet stories that you have passed along.

Perhaps you will find interesting and enlightening a story that dates from the very beginning of my graduate studies in political science some 42 years ago.  During a class in political analysis, I was told the following (which I can only paraphrase now):

“Forget most of what you think you know about politics.  The world is full of political ideas, commentary, and assertions disguised as some sort of ‘knowledge.’ Most of that is non-vetted nonsense.  If you are to succeed as a political scientist, you must pay attention to what appears in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics — and pay attention to only those journals.  They are the only ones that have a sufficiently rigorous review process to ensure that the ideas contained in their articles are important and have been analyzed with sufficient care that the results can be replicated.  If an article does not provide information and a process for reproducing the information that a reasonably intelligent “disinterested” reader (one with no axe to grind) could follow to come to the same results, the conclusions are dubious (regardless of how provocative and intuitively satisfying that they are).

“But if you are to succeed as a professor of politics and engage your students successfully, you will have to connect what’s in these journals to current political events.  And the ‘information’ that is available about current events is far more suspect than that which clutters the lesser journals of political science.  Almost every source has an agenda and an axe to grind that compromise their contents.  There is only one newspaper that has the resources to thoroughly vet an article before publishing it and that is the New York Times.  Their editors and staff carefully check out all sources and assertions to verify authenticity and accuracy; their reputation and thus their prized status depends upon it.”

(The Times subsequent treatment of the Watergate story confirms their high standards.  Their reporters had the essentials of that story before Bernstein and Woodard broke it in the Washington Post, but the Times editors refused to run it because they could not confirm such things as the existence of Deep Throat and other key sources and the veracity of their claims. The Washington Post, however good that paper is, simply had lower standards).

I continue to depend on the NYT and its vetting process.  Thus, the quick method I use in checking out dubious stories is to go to the NYT website (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html), enter key names and terms from the dubious story and see what comes up.  In the case of the two devout Muslims you mention, nothing comes up, so I think its best to assume that the story has no legs.

An even simpler technique that is available to you is to pay attention to whether or not information about sources is provided.  If there is no mention of any sources, there is no way to check the validity of what is being written.  And some articles, especially on the Internet, do not even provide the name of the author.  Anonymous authors cannot be held accountable for their “facts,” and thus one should be leery of their claims.

Much has changed since I received that initial lecture on validity. I have found much credible work outside the top three journals (and some of my best work has been published in places other than these journals!).  Beyond the New York Times, a few other periodicals and newspapers have developed quite rigorous vetting processes.

That takes us to the negative side of what has happened since I received that initial lecture in political analysis.  Political science (and much of academia) has become infected with three major trends that compromise our capacity to provide replicable — that is to say, valid or “scientific” – knowledge.  First, specialization on topics of minute importance has become the key to academic success, and thus the work that must be vetted is accessible to only a very small number of similar specialists, and so friends and acquaintances can dominate the vetting process in ways that compromise confidence in it.  Second, many academics have sold out to those who fund their research, in ways that compromise their disinterested (no axe to grind) integrity.  Third, and most significantly, many “scholars” have given up the search for valid knowledge; the “post-modernists and post-structuralists” among us maintain that there is no such thing as political knowledge, just a large variety of different viewpoints.  These perspectives were initially prompted by concerns that the innovative and creative ideas and views of women, minorities, and gays had been marginalized by the demands of the vetting process.  But in recent years, various radical and extremist voices have taken the post-structural claim to mean that politics is not a search for inter-subjective agreement about good and just governance, but rather is a debate among different views in which the object is not to find truth but to make outrageous claims that appeal to the prejudices, emotions, and fears of voters. The Internet is a perfect medium for the dissemination of their unvetted views.

Such trends lead me to the hypothesis that civilization (the process of peacefully reconciling our differences by putting aside our personal interests and prejudices and seeking the public good and justice) is nearing its collapse.  Of course, this idea cannot be vetted and so it is just my own fearful opinion (but not only mine).  Until recently I had not been fearful; indeed, I still have a reputation as an optimist and try to project that side of my persona.  It bothers me a great deal that I have become gloomy.  Is America, our universities, and our democracy really going to hell?  Or am I just becoming another crotchety old geezer, unable to free myself from old ideas and ideals?

Nevertheless, I still see my job as getting people to seek political knowledge that is far  more capable of “inter-subjective agreement” than the nonsense that passes for political discourse today.  That agenda, I believe, makes me not a “radical” or even a “liberal,” but the true “traditionalist” here.  Today’s radicals are often found in the Tea Party (and more recently in the Trump administration). They make claims that are, minimally, beyond confirmation and often simply outrageous.  Of course, there have always been a lot of outrageous groups in our history.  But it is scary that more Americans than ever seem to be buying this stuff.

Glancing through the local paper here at the University of Kansas, where I have taught politics for 40 years, I was immediately interested in, but ultimately distressed about, a story concerning the paper I had read growing up in Appleton.  Apparently, the Post-Crescent’s management is distraught that some of its employees have signed a petition calling for Governor Scott Walker’s recall, and was threatening sanctions against employees who exercised their political rights.

Of course, the media should be objective in its news coverage, but newspapers have always exercised freedom of the press to express the views of their publishers and staff in editorials.  I would be astonished if the Post-Crescent has not recently published editorials that compromised the “impartiality” that the executives of the Post-Crescent proclaim as crucial to its public service mission.

In a democracy, impartiality does not mean silence in the face of perceived grievances.  Nor does it mean presenting two opposing opinions as if they have equal scientific or moral merit. Impartially means full consideration of facts, evidence, and arguments (and particularly a refusal to distort such matters) when coming to reasonable interpretations and judgments on matters that are inherently controversial. No reasonable person would presume that the Post-Crescent’s impartiality is undermined by some of its employees signing a petition expressing their judgments, but they might well think its impartiality is in question if such judgments are suppressed.

It is a mystery to me why the publishers and editorial staff should have rights to express their views on the printed page while ordinary employees have no right to express their views by merely signing a petition.  From this distance, it appears that the Post-Crescent has the same aversion to the equal political rights of its employees as Governor Walker has exhibited in the closed procedures he has employed in pursuit of his anti-public employee agenda.

Politicians and pundits speak of “crises” with such frequency that it is difficult to discern when a problem has festered to the point that we confront a major danger  – as well as the opportunities that genuine crises provide.  The current financial mess and the response of our political processes to this mess certainly feels like a crisis, as the viability of our economy and our democracy are brought into question.

The defeat of the rescue plan Monday in the House reflected widespread moral indignation with those who precipitated the collapse of financial institutions and credit markets.  As Robert Kuttner has documented in The Squandering of America, we are witnesses to widespread corruption by key Wall Street actors (those stockbrokers, underwriters, accountants, lawyers, and corporate board of directors who manipulated the prices of stocks, bonds, and other investments) and compliant governmental agents (ranging from the Securities and Exchange Commission to legislators of both parties who have developed and enforced lax regulations).  They have enriched themselves and favored clients at the expense of others: those who made poor investment decisions based on misleading information;  the broader public adversely affected by the cascading economic risks that accompany unsecured investments; and future generations potentially saddled with the bills of cleaning up this mess.

Our moral indignation is not that some investments have been highly profitable or that some folks have become fabulously rich during the past quarter century.  It is certainly part of the American ethos that individuals can pursue their self-interests, profit from their investments, and become wealthy if warranted by their talents and contributions.  Most moral philosophies do not require that we abandon our self-interests, but they do impose restraints on us.  They deny that we can harm others in the process of pursuing our own interests or as a result of such pursuits.

Perhaps at one time there was extensive compliance with such moral codes, but during the past few decades more and more people – seduced by the attractions of reaping untold luxuries and dominant power in the new political economy – regard such moral restraints as anachronisms of a society that has not accommodated itself to the benefits offered by the ruthless competition of a global free market economy.  Such people justify the harms to some people that result from the unbounded pursuit of profits as more than offset by the aggregate gains that a minimally regulated market might produce.

Our contemporary moral deficit requires more than a moral awakening.  Most people have the moral sense to recognize limits on self-interested actions.  Most of the agents responsible for the current crisis are members of professional associations having codes of ethics.  In a society where such “voluntary” restraints are inadequate, coercion is required.   Governmental regulations can provide detailed rules prohibiting harmful acts and employing stiff penalties to coerce compliance.  Politics is the process by which various people affected by the harm done by others can seek protection.

But most people do not understand politics in this way.  While liberal democratic politics has during the past few centuries produced enormous protections and benefits for most citizens, most people have forgotten or were never aware of the good that governments can produce.   What is evident to most people is that American government has become subjected to the same forces of corruption that have come to dominate Wall Street.  There is considerable validity in their views.  Some people have turned to politics to acquire the power to pursue their narrow interests.   Other people have been seduced by the same sorts of misinformation that Wall Street has dispensed, “buying” very poor policy choices.  Thus, many others have turned away from politics in disgust.

Rather than understanding politics as a vehicle for pursuing our public interest, we see it as a process by which a few pursue their private interests at the expense of the public.   Rather than understanding politics as the search for a full array of justice ideals – including equal individual rights, the provision of certain social benefits to all citizens, and assistance to those in dire circumstances through no fault of their own – protecting property rights has become the central focus of our justice concerns.  Rather than understanding democracy as a process by which citizens can seek the public interest and justice in its various forms, we see democracy as a process in which public officials preoccupied with partisan advantage become deadlocked on urgent issues, where candidates preoccupied with winning elections engage in deceit and gamesmanship, and where voters are thus left with little capacity to attain the corrections that a (potential) crisis provides.

But this degraded understanding of democratic politics need not prevail.   While the November elections will not enable our society to eliminate all the problems confronting our economy and our government, they can lead us back from the abyss.   Democratic elections provide citizens an opportunity to express their moral outrage.

Both Republican and Democratic incumbents can be appropriate targets of this outrage.  There are members of both parties in Congress and our state legislatures who are honorable men and women, whose differences involve principled disagreements about the requirements of the public interest and justice on the particular issues they address.  But there are scoundrels whose interests center on partisan advantage, benefiting their donors, and enriching themselves.  There are incompetents who hew to an ideological perspective without bothering to understand the complexities of the issues before them.  It may require a certain diligence on the part of voters, but sorting out the worthy from the unworthy is within our collective capacity.

Both John McCain and Barack Obama seem to be honorable men who pledge to fight the corruption and restore democracy, but we must choose between them.  If we look beyond the sound bites, the negative accusations, and even the details of their policy positions, is there anything that differentiates them that might be decisive for those of us who are morally indignant and dismayed by our degraded politics?  An understanding of the possibility of democratic politics suggests the key difference.

Only a cynic would deny that both McCain and Obama are committed to pursuing the public interest.  Their support for the plan to rescue our financial institutions and divert an economic meltdown is one testament to this.  But a commitment to the public interest is not the only concern of democratic politics; it must be complemented with a devotion to justice.  It is not enough to seek “the greater good,” because such (utilitarian) commitments can lead a political leader to pursue policies that promise to increase overall economic growth, even though that growth may come through processes that are unjust to those sacrificed on the alter of maximizing profits.  Such, of course, was the mindset of those who supported the deregulation of financial markets that got us into this mess.  Such is the mindset of those whose “rescue” policies focus on coming to the aid of those at the commanding heights of our economy, but are inadequately focused on punishing those responsible for the crisis and rescuing those whose homes are subject to foreclosure, whose retirements have been derailed by the plummeting values of their 401(k) accounts, and whose jobs are endangered by a deep recession.

Are McCain and Obama equally committed to justice?  This is a question that should be at the center of our attention in the month ahead.